silence2
wars. Heard stories. We needed cats, Ladies, you. How could I hold for a lifetime when the best third of my army could stay home if it felt like it?""Henry did it. Thirty years."
"Mother said . . ."
"Your mother had singers to sing pretty ballads about honor and glory to folk as hadn't seen a thousand lancers die on the legions' spears. Ballad, you just have to be brave. Seen a lot of brave men die. Killed some. War, do with what you have. Never did figure out how she thought he was going to hold the legions after he finished trying to conquer us. Sing ballads at 'em, maybe."
Harald turned, wandered off; James returned his attention to what he was doing. When he was done he sorted out the worst of the scorched cakes and went looking for horses.
The next morning they again headed north. A day south of the Borderflood they made camp. Harald sent out scouts, Leonora messengers. Two days later, one of them came back.
Early morning, a column of horsemen riding single file south, bows, quivers, leather armor. To their left, half a bowshot or less, the forest, right the plain, rolling in long waves to the western range dim in the distance. Two scouts ahead, one left near the forest edge, one right riding for the ridge top.
Out of the forest arrows, men and beasts falling, horses bolting for the plain, riders clinging to the side away from the attack. Over the ridge. On the far side, a hundred yards beyond, a line of cats. A storm of arrows.
Harald yelled out something in a language James had never heard before. Everything